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BTW, I have known plenty of those professionals myself and I know you'll probably say I'm bashing again, but they have all been better educated and overall smarter than any teacher I have ever met. The course work for their degrees is much more rigorous in the first place, not to mention advanced degrees required for docs and lawyers, continuous training and such that engineers go through as well, not even limited to master's degrees. Sorry, but teachers (in general) just aren't in the same league as docs, lawyers, engineers and such, IMO.
Well, I wasn't really replying to you, but I'm glad you finally came out and said what you've been alluding to for days.
I did some checking to be sure, but our high school students can only miss 7 times for any reason, excused or unexcused (including illness, Dr appointments, with or without a parent note, etc.) before they get a 0 for the course.
It must vary by district, your district sounds very lenient.
Is that seven absences for the year or seven absences during one nine-week marking period?
When I was in high school, if you were taking a class that was only one marking period (such as health), you could only miss it seven times before you lost credit. For a half-year class it was 13 absences, 3/4-year was 17 and full-year was 20.
If having seven unexcused absences in the high school where I teach would make you lose credit, half of my students wouldn't be in class anymore. I just recently sent a notice to the attendance officer about a girl who'd been absent 9 times in 18 days.
Well, I wasn't really replying to you, but I'm glad you finally came out and said what you've been alluding to for days.
What is your point? Is this your smoking gun?? HA!! Guess what, there are a lot of professional folks who aren't 'in the same league', it doesn't diminish their field, just helps put some perspective on what it means to be a professional in your mind. You want teachers to be in the same league as others you think of as professionals (without the same required education, training, liability, responsibility, etc). But, in my mind there are all kinds of professionals, painters, carpenters, managers, delivery truck drivers, teachers, preachers, lawyers, plumbers....all CAN be professionals in their field. Some of these professions rely heavily on artistic/creative skills, for some education is key, some just require dedication and a strong work ethic, some require more people and management skills (in reality any professional person will have a right mix of those skills for his/her chosen field).....but ALL can be professional and all can be nobly preformed.
It doesn't diminish anyone to suggest that docs and lawyers are in a different league (notice I said different league, NOT BETTER!)...even the painters and plumbers know it...problem is that you don't seem to know it.
You know, I have been giving some thought to the whole 'flex time' for teachers idea and I actually think it might work within an overhaul of the system. The standard of 180 days in a year for school is ridiculous...we should have REAL year around schools, stretched out over the whole year like most traditional jobs. The 'work day' would consist of the same hours but with more study/prep time built in so our students aren't coming home with hours of homework and working a 50-60 hour week (you think it's hard for teachers...try working 60 hours a week when you are 13 years old!!). With traditional holidays and 1-2 week breaks between trimesters teachers would have more regular times to schedule doc appointments, etc. Personally, I don't care if you want to make phone calls or run to the bank during your planning period but I also don't care if you have to take work home to complete in the evenings or over the weekend. The students have to do the same, all kinds of 'professionals' have to do the same so the whining has to stop....but it would probably be a much more workable schedule for teachers, students and parents.
Is that seven absences for the year or seven absences during one nine-week marking period?
When I was in high school, if you were taking a class that was only one marking period (such as health), you could only miss it seven times before you lost credit. For a half-year class it was 13 absences, 3/4-year was 17 and full-year was 20.
If having seven unexcused absences in the high school where I teach would make you lose credit, half of my students wouldn't be in class anymore. I just recently sent a notice to the attendance officer about a girl who'd been absent 9 times in 18 days.
7 absences during the length of the course, regardless if it is a semester or full year. I don't think we have any courses that run just one marking period. The absences are counted per class, not per day. So, if you are sick a day you have one absence in each of your classes, if you are habitually late and miss first period 7 times you lose credit for only that first period course. Actually, students don't 'lose credit', they get a score of 0 which is factored into their GPA. They would still have to repeat the course if it is a pre-req for a higher level course.
NCyank, your posts show that you really don't have much of a clue about what teachers really have to deal with. I can live with that, since you've probably never been a teacher. I had no clue about what teachers had to deal with either, until I was one... and that's with my parents both having been teachers!! I never saw the extreme workloads... because they were far from first-year teachers by the time I got to the age of cognition. I never saw the stress, for the same reason. Of course, this was in the 80s, before America's 2nd-worst-ever piece of legislation (second only to the stimulus bill) was passed... and of course that's "No Child Left Behind". Back in the 80s, teachers could still have control of their classrooms and they coudl still fail kids who weren't working, without having to do tons of paperwork or worry about lawsuits.
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Originally Posted by NCyank
And just how do you propose the school system would work with all the teachers and admins on flex time, scheduling appointments and making phone calls during school hours as needed?
Frankly, making phone calls isn't a problem for me. I have two free periods per day (out of seven) just like every other high school teacher in Texas. I make my phone calls at those times. The only trouble is... it's against the school rules! So, how so I propose the school system would work with us on that? How about SAY IT'S OKAY to make personal phone calls during free periods and STOP saying that we'll get in trouble for doing so!
Flex time? I wouldn't need it if it were not REQUIRED that we be at school starting at 8 and ending at 4:30. Class begins at 8:45 and since my first period is a free period, for me class doesn't begin until 9:42. Technically, I should be allowed to come to school in time to be teaching when my first class starts. The last bell rings at 4:05... that means class is done... how about allowing us to leave at 4:10 when all of the kids are out of our rooms? But NO... we HAVE to work eight hours! How about allowing us to leave the school during our free periods? NO, we have to have that APPROVED by an administrator! I sit on my keister and read the news sometimes during my free periods if I have nothing better to do... don't tell me that that's more productive than going to the bank or something!
As for having days to schedule appointments, I would say that we could have shorter breaks in exchange for the occasional three-day weekend... maybe two per month at least... where that extra day was a NON-HOLIDAY such that we could actually get things done on that day. I would rather have that, than have a two-week Christmas break and a 2 1/2-month summer break. Shrink summer to two months and give us two three-day weekends per month! Those do help.
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Originally Posted by NCyank
I suppose you still want summers and breaks in addition to the flex time and whatever other privileges you think professionals are entitled to? I can't think of a better way to take a poorly preforming system and make it even worse. How ridiculous.
When you work an extremely stressful job, you want breaks. I think that the structure and length of breaks should be changed, but yeah, it helps. I don't know one teacher who would teach public school if it weren't for those breaks. They are vital to our sanity. However, as I said above, I could live with shorter breaks.
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Originally Posted by NCyank
BTW, I have known plenty of those professionals myself and I know you'll probably say I'm bashing again, but they have all been better educated and overall smarter than any teacher I have ever met.
This is true largely because people who are of the "professional" type of which you speak have recognized that they could make a lot more doing something other than teaching... something not overly regulated by the government, as well. My kids have called me one of the smartest teachers they have... my education was geared toward putting me into the science or computer programming field. I got schooled in a path that was meant to bring me into that "professional" realm. Then we had a recession......
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Originally Posted by NCyank
The course work for their degrees is much more rigorous in the first place, not to mention advanced degrees required for docs and lawyers, continuous training and such that engineers go through as well, not even limited to master's degrees. Sorry, but teachers (in general) just aren't in the same league as docs, lawyers, engineers and such, IMO.
You're right. They don't make as much money, they work at least as hard and have at least as much stress (but nowhere near the salary), and some states are now mandating master's degrees for all of their teachers. Continuous training? Now I KNOW you've never been a teacher. Haven't you ever heard of "professional development"? That's a fancy term for "wasting time"... but it's the school system's idea of how to give teachers continued training.
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Originally Posted by NCyank
Teachers also aren't held to the same standards. You want to be the same kind of professional...OK, I want to be able to sue you when you have substandard teaching results the same way I can sue the doc for misdiagnosis,
You can't possibly be serious. Substandard teaching results? How can you be sure that it is the TEACHER, and not the STUDENT, who is responsible for that bad grade? I have always been really good at math and in my senior year of high school, I was named one of the top 200 math students in the country based upon scores I earned on a nationwide set of standardized math tests. My mathematical ability was evident from an early age. However, my freshman year, I got a D+ in Algebra 2. Why do you suppose that was? Was it due to the teacher? NO! She had over 30 years of experience and she was very smart and very capable. It was because of ME. It was because I was LAZY and I didn't do my work. If kids knew that their teachers could be sued for poor teaching results, they could easily create a conspiracy against a teacher they don't particularly like... to fail that teacher's classes and then see to it that the teacher was sued. When the doctor misdiagnoses you, that is entirely the doctor's fault unless you were lying about your symptoms. See, it's still a gray area.
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Originally Posted by NCyank
or the lawyer who misrepresents me, or the engineer who designs a faulty piece of equipment. You should have a stated set of standard expectations to meet, and the standards get higher each year, that's pretty common for engineers.
If teachers' standards got higher every year, all that would happen is that more and more kids would fail. Ultimately it's in the hands of the kids... and that's why teaching is so frustrating. You can be teaching your heart out and doing whatever you can do to get your students to learn... and if the students just don't give a crap, they will fail anyway. You can always lead the horse to water but you can never make him drink. It is the STUDENT who puts the answers on his/her test paper, not the teacher. Push kids too hard and they shut down... that's one of the biggest problems facing education today.
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Originally Posted by NCyank
You know what happens if you fail to meet expectations? At best you don't get your bonus or pay increase, at worst they escort you to the door on a Friday morning after they have packed up your office in cardboard boxes. No excuses like 'parents didn't cooperate' and 'I didn't get support from the team' because customers and suppliers don't always cooperate either and no one really cares about the 'team' but still the performance expectations must be met.
Yeah, but YOUR performance is not always based upon the performance of others. How would you feel if your job, and the existence thereof or salary therefor, were totally resting upon the performance of a bunch of adolescents? There's a reason why we don't give adolescents certain privileges (such as being able to drive, vote, and buy addictive chemicals)... it's because they cannot handle the responsibility. That spills over into school, you know.
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Originally Posted by NCyank
I don't want to hear 'We shouldn't have to take work home...blah, blah, blah.' You think those professional you listed work standard 40 hour work weeks with flex time? HA!! They work until the JOB is done regardless of the hours. Surely you would be as accepting of the same responsibility/liability/accountablility if you are going to get all the 'perks', RIGHT?!?!
What gets teachers mad is the implicit requirement that work be done at home, or outside of working hours. In most "professional" situations, if you're good enough, you can get your work done during working hours. Then when you do, you can get started working ahead on the next project. Teachers can't do that. I can't grade my papers until the kids hand them in. Oh, and there's nothing like having to give a semester test and being told that you have until noon on the next workday to get them graded and have the grades posted. They schedule when semester tests are given... and then they schedule when grades have to be in. There aren't many teachers who can give an honest-to-goodness semester test and have it graded and have grades entered within a three-hour time span... especially when entering grades includes finalizing marking period grades and semester grades. Marking period grades you might be able to get done ahead of time, but then everything averages together with the semester exam grade to create the semester grade. So then you have to look at those semester grades and see who is failing, see if you believe that student really deserves to fail, maybe tweak the grade accordingly, etc. It'd be one thing if we had a week's worth of work days to do this, such that we could get it done during our free periods or our lunch breaks. We don't get that. How many other jobs give you a heaping amount of work that only you can do, and then a next-day deadline, such that you are required to spend who knows how many hours of your personal time doing it?
Let's face it... there is a reason why a standard work week is defined to be 40 hours and why any hourly employee who works more than 40 hours in one week is entitled to overtime pay. It's called "overtime" because the standard set by the government in which we are placing so much of our blind faith these days is that one should not have to work more than 40 hours in a week.
7 absences during the length of the course, regardless if it is a semester or full year. I don't think we have any courses that run just one marking period. The absences are counted per class, not per day. So, if you are sick a day you have one absence in each of your classes, if you are habitually late and miss first period 7 times you lose credit for only that first period course.
That'd really suck for kids who tended to get sick a lot. When I was a freshman in high school, I notched up 17 absences- all due to illness- in that year. It was a rare year when I didn't have at least ten.
So then what would happen is that sick kids would go to school to avoid losing credit, and then they'd sicken everyone else. Really smart. This is why I've gotten sick three times this year and just got over my second fever-bearing illness in five weeks... when, before January, I hadn't had a fever since the summer of 2005. Sick kids come to school and they don't care about anyone else.
Frankly, making phone calls isn't a problem for me. I have two free periods per day (out of seven) just like every other high school teacher in Texas. I make my phone calls at those times. The only trouble is... it's against the school rules! So, how so I propose the school system would work with us on that? How about SAY IT'S OKAY to make personal phone calls during free periods and STOP saying that we'll get in trouble for doing so!
Flex time? I wouldn't need it if it were not REQUIRED that we be at school starting at 8 and ending at 4:30. Class begins at 8:45 and since my first period is a free period, for me class doesn't begin until 9:42. Technically, I should be allowed to come to school in time to be teaching when my first class starts. The last bell rings at 4:05... that means class is done... how about allowing us to leave at 4:10 when all of the kids are out of our rooms? But NO... we HAVE to work eight hours! How about allowing us to leave the school during our free periods? NO, we have to have that APPROVED by an administrator! I sit on my keister and read the news sometimes during my free periods if I have nothing better to do... don't tell me that that's more productive than going to the bank or something!
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Originally Posted by NWPAguy
What gets teachers mad is the implicit requirement that work be done at home, or outside of working hours. How many other jobs give you a heaping amount of work that only you can do, and then a next-day deadline, such that you are required to spend who knows how many hours of your personal time doing it?
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Originally Posted by NWPAguy
Let's face it... there is a reason why a standard work week is defined to be 40 hours and why any hourly employee who works more than 40 hours in one week is entitled to overtime pay. It's called "overtime" because the standard set by the government in which we are placing so much of our blind faith these days is that one should not have to work more than 40 hours in a week.
So, are you hourly or salaried?? You know that salaried workers don't get overtime pay right? 40 hours, 50 hours, 80 hours...all the same pay. If you are hourly then you don't usually get flex time...you show up to work 8 hours a day.
Do you also know that my students don't get any free periods or study halls during the day? They have 6 academic classes in middle school while middle school teachers teach only 4 classes per day, high school students take 4 academic classes and high school teacher teach 3. Teachers get over 3 hours of the work day for planning and grading so they don't have to take work home regularly. The students bring home several hours of home work each night, in fact, they are not ALLOWED to start homework in class. They can do homework if they eat lunch quickly enough and get a pass from the teacher...but that is less than 20 minutes so most students take it as down time. Their normal work week is at least 50 hours and if they have projects or papers due, or if they want to learn more than just enough to pass the test (the difference between being well educated and getting good grades) they can easily put in 60 hour work weeks. Do you understand that I am having a hard time sympathizing when you post the above bolded statement, that you have to work 8 hours a day and that a standard work week is 40 hours?? It reminds me of my chubby high school gym teacher who berated us as we ran laps when she couldn't even keep up for one lap.
I've already said that if they ask me to make the rules I don't much care what you do with your planning periods, make phone calls, run errands...whatever. However, the FIRST time you get stuck up in traffic or tied up on the phone and leave students standing in the hall waiting for you to show up, your flex time would end. You seem to not understand how much you are contradicting yourself....you want 'flex time' so you can do personal stuff during 'business hours' but don't want to have to use 'personal time' to complete your work. That's not realistic. Salaried professionals know there is a REALLY fuzzy line between work and personal time. You can't ask for the best of both...flex time and traditional work hours. There are no 'working hours' for salaried employees. You work whenever and however it takes to complete the work.
It sounds like you have some 'down time' at your work now and also some times of very heavy work load...so it evens out in the end....??? I can live with that. But remember, I'd also give you flex time with the caveat that you get the work done regardless of the time it takes, personal or business time...it's all the same when you are salaried.
Some teachers are noble, but i wouldn't call the profession noble.
I have an issuewith the bad teachers who can not be fired because of a union.
Teachers have a union, there are teachers who do not teach after getting in trouble with students, but can not be fired because of the union. Maybe if it were easier for schools to fire the bad teachers there would be more good ones.
I had a HS school teacher that told a student that she must like to give head in a class, and nothing happened, except that he was magically on vacation during accredidation.
I had a 2nd grade teacher that screamed at us for the entire year and told us that we were out to get her. And the parents couldn't get her fired.
And if I hear the pay thing again I might scream, the teachers in my district start at 45k. I work just as many hours at a high pressure job and make 30k starting. Teachers make good money. I have yet to meet a teacher that makes less than minimum wage.
I have had the pleasure of having teachers that were amazing, and I have also had teachers that should have been nowhere near students. I will give credit to the teachers who are really noble, but I won't call the professin noble until bad and sometimes dangerous teachers are able to be fired.
There are many bad teachers and unions should not protect them. But I've never seen a school where they were the majority or the norm.
Where I live we don't have unions by state law. The bad teachers we have are still there in large part because the good ones are leaving as fast as they can due to the absurd impositions of incompetent administrators and raving parents when it comes time to deal with student behavior, achievement, etc.
I had a first grade teacher who was a drunk, which I didn't understand at the time. She would scream at us unmercifully, then come back in apologizing and crying the next day. And then the pattern would repeat. This was in 1960.
Did anyone ever say what "noble profession" means anyway?
There are many bad teachers and unions should not protect them. But I've never seen a school where they were the majority or the norm.
Where I live we don't have unions by state law. The bad teachers we have are still there in large part because the good ones are leaving as fast as they can due to the absurd impositions of incompetent administrators and raving parents when it comes time to deal with student behavior, achievement, etc.
I had a first grade teacher who was a drunk, which I didn't understand at the time. She would scream at us unmercifully, then come back in apologizing and crying the next day. And then the pattern would repeat. This was in 1960.
Did anyone ever say what "noble profession" means anyway?
Well, I did post the Webster's definition of 'noble'.
Of course there are bad, good, wonderful and bizarre teachers....
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